Trying to Make the James Bond Submarine Car a Reality

Growing up on James Bond, the parts I always looked forward to were the incredible stuntwork, as well as the gadgets and vehicles. Bond always had an incredible arsenal of cars and toys at his disposal, and now a billionaire is trying to make 007’s submarine car an actual reality.

Elon Musk, the founder of a company called Spacex, bought James Bond’s submarine car from the movie The Spy Who Loved Me for half a million pounds, or a million in US currency, at auction. Musk told the Telegram, “It was amazing as a little kid in South Africa to watch James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me drive his Lotus Esprit off a pier, press a button and have it transform into a submarine underwater.” 

Of course this car was a movie prop, and Musk admitted to Cnet he was “disappointed to learn that it can’t actually transform. What I’m going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real.”

If Musk can actually develop the technology that can make cars drive underwater, could it take off all over the world? Could it be the hot new thing for multi-millionaires and billionaires? Could there also be budget editions for regular folks like you and me that we can lease? 

We’ll see how far Musk gets with all of this, but maybe the fact that you can spend a million on a submarine car without realizing it really can’t drive underwater is a tell-tale sign you have too much money.